Una Voce Northern Alabama will elect officers for the 2015 term on Sunday, December 21, 2014 at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Birmingham immediately following the 10:45 Mass. Anyone interested in serving as an officer or otherwise volunteering should email uvna@unavocenorthernalabama.com.

Our organization is often asked: “What does it take to get a Latin Mass started at my parish?”

Answer: A priest who is able and willing to make it happen.

In an effort to enable more priests, on November 10th and 11th of 2014, Una Voce Northern Alabama hosted a workshop to train priests from our diocese to offer the Traditional Latin Mass. Alex Begin of Extraordinary Faith conducted the training. Alex has remarkable experience training about fifty priests and several bishops to offer the Traditonal Latin Mass. Joseph Cheney of UVNA also facilitated. Joseph is a Ph.D. student at the University of Alabama and a dedicated officer and volunteer for UVNA who has trained many of the servers in our diocese. The training took place at Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Birmingham. Many thanks to Fr. Bryan W. Jerabek, J.C.L. for graciously lending us use of the church!

Seven priests from the Diocese of Birmingham in Alabama attended our workshop. These priests came from parishes in four different counties. Only one of them had prior experience. They received individual and group instruction on the 1962 Missale Romanum, including its text, rubrics, and pertinent customs. UVNA and Extraordinary Faith gifted each priest a Benziger altar missal as well as additional supplemental training books and videos.

Obviously, this amounts to a significant chapter in the growth of the Traditional Latin Mass in our diocese, as it increased the number of diocesan priests in Alabama trained to offer the Traditional Latin Mass by roughly more than 300%. It also presented each of these priests with a unique and intimate exposure to Una Voce and our mission, as well as a small dose of Traditional Catholicism!

Moreover, we think this is a notable chapter in the overall resurgence of the Church’s traditional liturgy. This was Extraordinary Faith’s largest priest training session to date. It was accomplished merely by mailing a short invitation letter to every priest in our diocese. While there were certainly other planning details that had to be addressed, the first step was simply to extend the invitation. It is our belief and hope that this method could be replicated in other dioceses, and we would welcome and encourage other Latin Mass groups to contact us (uvna@unavocenorthernalabama.com) if they are interested in more details or assistance doing the same.

Again, the impact this short workshop will have on our diocese cannot be overstated. Congratulations to all the priests who attended. Lex orandi, lex credendi!